A consortium comprising of Etisalat, Du, Abu Dhabi Media Company, Dubai Media Incorporated, Emirates Communications and Technologies Company, a subsidiary of TECOM Investment, and MBC has been granted a licence to provide mobile TV broadcasting services for 10 years. The licence fee amounts to AED 17 million (US$4.6 million), with an additional royalty also be applied on the company. The TRA has agreed to grant the consortium exclusivity to provide the broadcast mobile TV for five years that will end on December 31, 2014.

The consortium has selected to utilise DVB-H technology, and will provide its services to Etisalat and Du, which will in turn offer a variety of competitive and exclusive mobile TV packages to their subscribers. With that, the TRA says it has maintained competition between the companies and reduced the capital expenditure of building networks in the UAE, which will have a positive impact on end-user pricing.

The company is expected to provide at least 13 channels for subscribers of the live TV broadcasting service. The service is expected to commence in Q410 and will cover majority of the UAE population. The UAE will be the first country to issue such licence in the region.

Mobily has announced the signing of a SAR 600 million (US$160 million) deal with Ericsson for the expansion of the coverage and capacity of the operator’s mobile network, including HSPA.

This is Mobily’s second major announcement this year for its 3.75G network, following a statement in March announcing the roll out of HSUPA; which made it one of 31 operators around the world at the time to provide a full HSPA experience according to the GSMA.

Mobily counts 800,000 active HSPA subscribers, who together consume more than one gigabyte of data a month, and who contribute to an overall mobile data exchange of 42 terabytes a day, making Mobily’s HSPA network the busiest in the world.

Today, Mobily’s HSPA network covers 78 per cent of all populated areas and offers customers an average speed of 1.8 Mbps on a HSPA network that supports speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps. Mobily has successfully covered more than 326 cities and towns in the kingdom with the 3.5G and 3.75G.

The contract awarded to Ericsson will increase network capacity and triple mobile broadband speeds, giving Mobily’s customers a faster broadband Internet experience. The contract awarded to Ericsson comes as part of the operator’s commitment to its mobile broadband customer base and as part of a series of other capacity expansion contracts with other global vendors including Huawei and Nokia Siemens.

Qtel reported a net profit attributable to shareholders of QAR710.9 million (US$195.2 million) for Q309, up nine per cent year-on-year. However consolidated revenues for the quarter were down four per cent year-on-year, from QAR6.2 billion in Q308 to QAR5.94 billion in Q309.

The telco said its mobile subscriptions in its home market of Qatar rose 44 per cent in the first nine months of the year to number 2.1 million at end-September, despite the debut of rival operator Vodafone Qatar in July. Subscriptions at Qtel’s Wataniya Telecom subsidiary, which has operations in six markets including Algeria, Kuwait and Tunisia, rose 17 per cent over the nine months to end-September to stand at 12.5 million. Subscriber numbers at Nawras, Qtel’s subsidiary in Oman were up 27 per cent year-on-year to 1.8 million at end-September.

Zain Saudi Arabia recorded a net loss of SAR820 million (US$219 million) in Q309, down from the SAR857 million net loss recorded in Q209 but up 26 per cent from the SAR649 million net loss recorded in Q308, according to a statement on the Saudi stock exchange. Zain also said that the Saudi unit recorded revenues of SAR825 million in Q309, up 18 per cent quarter-on-quarter, and that its subscriber base now accounts for more than 15 per cent of the Saudi mobile market.

Omani MVNO Majan Telecom has made some adjustments in the local management structure so that Niklas Nielsen is no longer so involved in the local operation in Oman. He now rather focuses on developing new opportunities.

Majan Telecom, which operates under the brand name Renna in Oman, declared from the very beginning of its incorporation that it wanted to focus heavily on making a successful launch in Oman, and use this as a stepping-stone to expand regionally. Having launched commercial operations earlier this year, and enjoyed customer take-up beyond the company’s expectations, Majan Telecom felt confident to enter the next phase of its regional development.

Nielsen has thus handed over the role as CEO of the local operation in Oman to Joakim Klingefjord but will also maintain his role as CFO. Fredrik Nystrom will continue as CMO. This change in structure will enable Nielsen to develop new opportunities while keeping an eye on the business in Oman from the group level.

“The move goes very well in hand with the general opening up of the markets for MVNOs where we feel positive winds blowing with several operators having picked up their progression,” commented Nielsen. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw the next signed MVNO agreement before summer next year,” he added.